Thursday, October 8, 2009

Back to the HALO Project

I spent some time fine tuning the gauntlet prototypes. I'm not entirely happy with the way they turned out, but they'll do:

The key thing I've been struggling with is the fine details all over these things:

The next step: Moldmaking. I started by making the first half of a 2-part box mold for the codpiece. Here's the box all stuck together with the parts in place and the clay parting line built up:

Here I am slathering goo (silicone rubber) into the box to pick up all of the surface details:

The next step was to pour some filler into the top of the box to keep the shape, then flip it over, pull the clay off of the bottom, apply a mold release, and then repeat this process for the bottom side. It worked out pretty well, so I ended up cranking out a few castings of the codpiece:

I also made some basic shell molds of the other parts of the "space diaper." Here's the butt plate set in a clay bed before pouring silicone on top:And here it is under rubber:

Here are a few more of the rubber jackets poured for other belt pieces and the tricep armor:

Once the rubber had cured, the next step was to build up rigid resin mothermolds to keep the rubber from flopping around once the original part was pulled out:

Here's some castings from the shoulder and bicep molds:

With all the casting and making mother molds, I ran out of resin. Fortunately I've got a new shipment coming in early next week. In the meantime, I have to get back to work fairing and detailing the calf (the left and right will be interchangeable, so I only have to make and mold one prototype) and the thighs. Here they are in their current state:

I couldn't resist the urge to test fit the thighs again:

I also had my friend Matt try on the larger size of torso armor I'm planning on making: